College Survival Guide: How To Prepare For College

Though incoming college freshmen might experience anxieties about their upcoming school year, it’s also natural for their parents to be nervous as well. Many aspects of parent-child relationships change drastically, including communication, responsibility and schedules.

We put together a handy guide which contains advice for parents whose teenagers are heading off to college.

Click here for some important information about things like the summer before they leave, parenting mistakes and information that parents wish they’d have known. The information comes straight from the source–college freshmen and college parents share the advice they’ve learned over the years.

College preparation

Whether it’s discussing your teen’s health, learning basic skills and finance or reviewing methods of communication, these conversations are crucial to have before the school season starts. It establishes the relationship parents will have with their teens at college, sets boundaries and helps prepare them for a life on their own.

Parent mistakes

There should be communication, but your college student might not appreciate being called 10 or more times a day. Your teen needs some space to learn how to adjust to the college environment on their own. So, even though it might seem really helpful at the time, it might be a good idea to visit them too much in the first semester or set up weekly dinners, if you live close enough. And please, don’t do all their laundry for them. They’ll figure it out.

Freshman advice

A freshman shares advice for incoming freshmen, based off of their experience. They say making friends is easier when there’s a little bit of distance from the ones back home; sometime’s it’s good to give those relationships some distance and shut off social media for a few weeks. Plus, they say it’s good to be open to trying new things. “Try anything and everything, and if you end up dropping the activity, it won’t matter,” they say.

Questions and answers

A college student answers questions from incoming students about everything from being sexiled to homesickness. They talk about intimidating professors and how much to pack, too. The student reassures that the adjustment to college normally happens pretty quickly, as it did for them. “About a month in, I just woke up one day and and realized, I’m comfortable here and I like it here,” they said.